Getting their requests in early

This is a picture the the Ft. Dodge paper put on their website after the girls and I were caught visiting Santa on Friday. If there is a less attractive position for a very pregnant woman to be in than squatting down, I can't imagine what it is.

Here Santa is asking the girls what they would like for Christmas and I am translating from very quiet, shy girl speak into English. The two girls ahead of us in line had each written a book, the heft of which would rival War and Peace, of their wish lists. My girls are much less greedy. One thing makes them as happy as a hundred.

When Santa asked Emily what she wanted she said a fish, that's it, nothing else. "Really?" Santa inquired, "Nothing else?" she said, "Mmm, maybe a tank for the fish." (Hear that Dean and Cynthia?)

Next Santa asked Claudia what she wanted. She answered, eyeing the box of candy canes that Santa gives to all the children that come to see him, and said that she wanted a candy cane. "Anything else?" asked Santa. No, that was pretty much all she wanted.

Here are the girls on Santa's lap. Clearly they are thrilled.

Halloween!

Ahh, Halloween! Here Claudia (as a Lion) and Emily (as a bride) sit just before heading off to trick-or-treat on Wednesday.

Although we did have a big, uncarved pumpkin on our front step you cannot see it in this photo as someone took it earlier in the week. We have decided that it was a poor child that could not afford a pumpkin of his or her own and not a total jerk that was just trying to be mean. Somehow roving bands of poor pumpkin less children make us feel better about our loss.

There was a smashed pumpkin in the street around the block from our house. Luckily, it was a pumpkin that had clearly been carved and so, although there was a great sadness about the destroyed pumpkin, the girls didn't seem to suspect that it may have been our beloved, still missing pumpkin splatted there in the street. The girls were obsessed for two days by the pumpkin roadkill, begging me to drive that way home any time we were out. They would crane their necks to look out the windows while pleading, "Drive slower! Please slow down so we can see it!" Then, once they had worked up the courage, the three of us walked over to see it up close and that seemed to give them the closure they needed.

Also, in general, we do not have a mini trampoline sitting against our front steps but we are in the process of fall cleaning and everything is being cleaned and stored (or at least moved somewhere else) and this trampoline was on it's way to the garage for the winter.

From out of the mouths of super hereos

At Emily's Halloween party on Wednesday another mother and I were approached by a little boy in a Spiderman costume that was quilted in such a way as to make him look muscular.

We smiled our little room mother smiles and then he looked up at us and asked, "I really like being Spiderman and all, but why do I have these big boobs?"